1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to medical apparatus and methods. More particularly, present invention relates to apparatus and methods for forming and closing surgical incisions.
Surgical closure devices including an adhesive based patch with right and left panels are known. Of particular interest of the present invention, such devices are described in co-pending, commonly owned PCT application US 2010/000430, full disclosure which is incorporated herein by reference. As described in the PCT application, an adhesive patch is placed over a patient's skin at a site where it is desired to form a surgical incision. After the patch is placed, an incision is formed along an axial line extending through the middle of the patch. After it is formed, the incision can be opened to perform a desired procedure, and after the procedure is completed the incision may be closed by drawing the inner edges of the panels together with a clip, zipper, or other closure member.
The principal objective of such surgical closure devices is to improved healing and reduce scaring from the incision. This objective, however, has been inhibited by certain characteristics of the presently available devices. For example, the tissue edges are not always brought together along an even line, which can increase the eventual scaring. Many such closure devices do not have the ability to adjust the closure force or distance on the tissue edges, limiting the ability to slightly “pucker” tissue which has been found to reduce scaring. Other shortcomings of the available incision and wound closure devices include difficulty of use and inability to conform to tissue manipulation during subsequent surgical protocols, i.e. those devices which are sufficiently rigid to securely close the tissue are often unable to conform to the tissue movement during the surgical procedure.
A particular problem arises with self-adhesive wound closure patches when they're used beneath an adherent surgical incision drape. Such drapes are used to help maintain the sterility of a tissue surface during a surgical procedure, and the drapes may be placed over a previously positioned tissue closure patch. As the surgical incision drape has an adhesive lower surface which adheres to the tissue, the drape will adhere to an upper surface of an underlying tissue closure patch. Removal of the surgical incision drape will thus often remove or at least displace a previously placed tissue closure patch. If any significant portion of the tissue closure patch is removed or displaced, the patch will no longer be useful for closing a surgical wound.
For these reasons, it would be desirable to provide improved surgical incision closure devices and methods for their use. It would be particularly desirable to provide incision closure devices which are able to adhere to the tissue, allow formation of the incision, conform to the deformation of the tissue during a subsequent surgical procedure, and provide controlled closure of the adjacent tissue edges subsequent to the procedure. In particular, it would be desirable if the incision closure devices were able to provide for the control and the uniform distribution of closure forces on the tissue edges while causing minimum restraint or stretching of the tissue during the surgical procedure. It would be still further desirable to provide improved surgical incision closure devices and methods for their use where the devices will resist removal and dislocation when used beneath a surgical incision drape. At least some of these objectives will be met by the inventions described below.
2. Description of the Background Art
Co-pending, commonly owned PCT application US 2010/000430 as been described above. Other surgical closure devices are described in the following U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,012,755; 3,516,409; 3,863,640; 3,933,158; 4,114,624; 3,926,193; 4,535,772; 4,676,245; 4,881,546; 4,905,694; 5,377,695; and 7,455,681; and U.S. Patent Publication Nos. 2005/0020956 and 2008/0114396. Commercial incision closure devices available from Ethicon, a division of Johnson & Johnson, under the trade name Ethizip™ temporary abdominal wound closure device.